Seasons of Hunger

Samuel Hauenstein Swan, Bapu Vaitla, Stephen Devereux

Description

Every year, millions of the rural poor suffer from predictable and preventable seasonal hunger. This hunger is less dramatic but no less damaging than the starvation associated with famines, wars and natural disasters. Seasons of Hunger explores why the world does not react to a crisis that we know will continue year after year.



Seasonal hunger is caused by annual cycles of shrinking food stocks, rising prices, and lack of income. This hidden hunger pushes millions of children to the brink of starvation every year, permanently stunting their physical and cognitive development, weakening their immune systems and opening the door for killer diseases. Action Against Hunger argue that ending seasonal hunger could save millions of young lives and is key to achieving the Millennium Development Goals. This book documents seasonal hunger in four countries - India, Malawi, Mali and Myanmar - including personal stories and country-wide data which shows the magnitude of the problem.



The authors also find encouraging examples of interventions designed to address seasonality - initiatives led by governments, donors and NGOs, and poor people themselves - and propose a package of advocacy messages that could contribute to the global eradication of seasonal hunger. This book will be a valuable resource for journalists, policy makers, NGO members and students of development studies.
Foreword

Introduction

1. Those with Cold Hands

2. A World Full of Good Ideas

3. From Policy to Rights

4. Postscript: Oneness

Appendix A: The Cost of a Minimum Essential Intervention Package to Fight Seasonal Hunger

References and Further Reading

Index

Sujets

• Social Science
• Sociologie, société et politique
• Sociology
• Development studies
• General officer
• Development
• General

Informations

• Publié par: Pluto Press
• Date de parution: 20 septembre 2008
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781849644136
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 15 Mo

Extrait

Seasons of Hunger

Fighting Cycles of Quiet Starvation Among the World’s Rural Poor

Stephen Devereux, Bapu Vaitla and Samuel Hauenstein Swan

Foreword by Robert Chambers

PLUTO PRESS www.plutobooks.com

in association with

First published 2008 by Pluto Press 345 Archway Road, London N6 5AA

www.plutobooks.com

Copyright © Action Against Hunger 2008

‘The Great Tablecloth’ from EXTRAVAGARIA by Pablo Neruda, translated by Alastair Reid. Translation copyright © 1974 by Alastair Reid. Reprinted by permission of Farrar, Straus and Giroux, LLC. © By courtesy of Fundación Pablo Neruda, 2008

The right of the individual contributors to be identified as the authors of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN ISBN

978 0 7453 2827 0 978 0 7453 2826 3

Hardback Paperback

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data applied for

This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufacturing processes are expected to conform to the environmental standards of the country of origin. The paper may contain up to 70% post consumer waste.

10

9

8

7

6

5

4

3

2

1

Designed and produced for Pluto Press by Chase Publishing Services Ltd, Sidmouth, EX10 9QG, England Typeset by Stanford DTP Services, Northampton, England Printed and bound in the European Union by CPI Antony Rowe, Chippenham and Eastbourne

‘The Great Tablecloth’

When they were called to the table, the tyrants came rushing with their temporary ladies; it was fine to watch the women pass like wasps with big bosoms followed by those pale and unfortunate public tigers.

The peasant in the field ate his poor quota of bread, he was alone, it was late, he was surrounded by wheat, but he had no more bread; he ate it with grim teeth, looking at it with hard eyes.

In the blue hour of eating, the infinite hour of the roast, the poet abandons his lyre, takes up his knife and fork, puts his glass on the table, and the fishermen attend the little sea of the soup bowl. Burning potatoes protest among the tongues of oil. The lamb is gold on its coals and the onion undresses. It is sad to eat in dinner clothes, like eating in a coffin, but eating in convents is like eating underground.

Eating alone is a disappointment, but not eating matters more, is hollow and green, has thorns like a chain of fish hooks trailing from the heart, clawing at your insides.

Hunger feels like pincers, like the bite of crabs, it burns, burns and has no fire. Hunger is a cold fire. Let us sit down soon to eat with all those who haven’t eaten; let us spread great tablecloths, put salt in the lakes of the world, set up planetary bakeries, tables with strawberries in snow, and a plate like the moon itself from which we can all eat.

For now I ask no more than the justice of eating.

Pablo Neruda

Contents

List of Illustrations About Action Against Hunger / Hunger Watch About the Institute of Development Studies /  Future Agricultures Consortium Forewordby Robert Chambers Preface Acknowledgements List of Abbreviations

1 Those with Cold Hands  Hunger in the Fields  Prices and the Seasons  The Struggle to Find Work  The Costs of Coping  Child Malnutrition in the Lean Season  The Father of Famine

2 A World Full of Good Ideas  Emergency Assistance  The Social Protection Safety Net  Agricultural Livelihoods Development

3 From Policy to Rights  Holes in the Net  The Power of Law

ix xiii

xv xvi xx xxiii xxvi

1 6 10 14 21 27 32

37 41 51 67

77 81 96

viii Seasons of Hunger  The Movement Forward: An International Right to Food  The Cost of Ending Seasonal Hunger

4 Postscript: Oneness

Appendix: The Cost of a Minimum Essential  Intervention Package to Fight Seasonal Hunger Notes References and Further Reading About the Authors Index

104 108

114

117 122 131 140 141

List of Illustrations

FIGURES

1.1 Devison Banda in his uncle’s shed in Kasiya village, Malawi 1.2 Map of Kasiya and Geni villages in Kasungu and Mchinji districts, Malawi 1.3 Average yield of staple crops in Malawi, India and Niger, as percentage of US average yield 1.4 Mirion Nkhoma, in the communallymanaged forest of Kasiya, Malawi 1.5 Grain storage facilities in Guidan Koura, Niger 1.6 Price fluctuations of millet in northern Ghana 1988/89 and maize in Mchinji district in Malawi in 2000/01 1.7 Projected effect of a 10 per cent increase in maize prices on welfare of different wealth groups in rural Malawi 1.8 Map of Guidan Koura village in Keita District, Niger 1.9 Zara with her children, in Guidan Koura, Niger 1.10 Families’ labour activities by month, Guidan Koura, Niger 1.11 Food groups consumed by children aged 6–24 months in the 24 hours preceding survey

ix

2

3

7

8 9

11

14

15

16

18

19

x Seasons of Hunger 1.12 Women outside Guidan Koura returning from collecting firewood 1.13 Responses to seasonal hunger in four different African countries 1.14 Livnes Banda, the daughter of Devison Banda, in Kasiya, Malawi 1.15 Admissions and deaths of children into NRU 2005–07, St Andrews Hospital, Kasungu district, Malawi 1.16 Seasonality in food prices and malnutrition in northern Ghana, 1988/89 1.17 A mother encouraging her child to eat therapeutic food at a feeding centre in Keita, Niger 1.18 Ganyu sought and ganyu offered in rural Zomba district, Malawi 2.1 Coming home from the market carrying millet, in Guidan Koura, Niger 2.2 Intervention framework for fighting seasonal hunger 2.3 Child being weighed for nutritional surveillance, Mchinji District, Malawi 2.4 Food Stress Index, Malawi, 2003/04 to 2005/06 seasons 2.5 Mother assisting her severely acutely malnourished child to eat therapeutic food, St Andrews Hospital, near Kasungu, Malawi 2.6 CashforWork programme near Guidan Koura, in Niger 2.7 Intended utilisation of income gained through Action Against Hunger CashforWork project

20

24

28

29

29

31

34

37

41

43

45

49

53

54

 Seasons of Hunger 2.8 Mother with child at growth promotion centre in Annapanenivari Gudem, Andhra Pradesh, India 2.9 Rainfall during the long rainy (meher) season, Aposto village, Ethiopia 3.1 One of Subhalakshmi’s workers, in West Godavari District, Andhra Pradesh, India 3.2 Map of West Godavari and Mahabubnagar Districts in the state of Andhra Pradesh, India 3.3 Subhalakshmi, talking to us in her field, West Godavari District, Andhra Pradesh, India 3.4 Farmer and his fields in the dry season, Annapanenivari Gudem, Andhra Pradesh, India 3.5 The people of Annapanenivari Gudem, working as day labourers in nearby fields 3.6 Seasonal cycles of income and rainfall in Annapanenivari Gudem 3.7 Seasonal pattern of malnutrition in Annapanenivari Gudem 3.8 Kumari, the ayah at the Anganwadi centre in Annapanenivari Gudem 3.9 Bhumika, at the Anganwadi centre 3.10 Seasonal dietary diversity in Jaklair, Andhra Pradesh, India 3.11 Estimated cost of antiseasonal hunger ‘minimum essential package’ 4.1 Soybean field of the Umodze project, Kasiya, Malawi

xi

60

71

78

79

80

83

84

85

86

91 93

103

110

116